Staring into their cruel, sadistic faces, he said, he shouted, “I AM NOT THE ENEMY! DON’T YOU SEE THAT? THE SOLDIERS! THEY’RE THE ENEMY! THEY’RE PART OF WHAT MADE YOU LIKE THIS!”
But those baneful white faces did not care.
They came on, a noisome throng, rustling and slithering and growling and hissing. He could see their sharp teeth and the pawing nails at the end of their pallid hands, the matted hair and yellow eyes like harvest moons rising above blighted October fields.
Yes, they came on in a swarm, totally detached of humanity, human insects ritually purging the hive of dangerous elements much as our ancestors might once have done under a boiling black sky of slaughter. Theirs was a fixed society and there was no room for those who did not fit seamlessly into the mass.
Lou heard his voice scream as they got closer, as he smelled their dark stink.
They circled around him and pressed in slowly, in no hurry whatsoever.
As he felt their cold fingers open furrows in his face and their teeth divorce him of flesh, all he could think of were their eyes. Those phobic, predatory pits.
He kept watching them until his own eyes were torn free from their housings.
36
“We’re all going to die,” Lisa heard someone say. “All of us. It all ends here. This is where it all ends for us.”
It took her a moment or two to realize that she was saying it.
She wasn’t entirely sure whether she was dreaming or awake and in this goddamn town, did it really matter? Because that was one thing she was sure of—she was still in Cut River. She could feel fresh air brush her face. Fresh, damp, yet carrying the smell of smoke.
So they’d made it to the roof, had they?
No matter, it was all coming down now and there was little she or any of the others could do but accept it and pray it happened quick.
She knew she personally couldn’t take much more.
Her nerves were frayed and her body ached and, God, this is what the junk had done to her. The one night of her life when she couldn’t afford to be anything but sharp, she’d fallen apart.
She was awake now.
The world was ending and she could smell the smoke and feel the fear of those around her. Although it was night, she could see plumes of smoke drifting against the retreating face of the moon and smell the burning stink of the town as it died. Beyond the rooftop, the horizon was blazing orange and red and yellow like the perimeter of hell itself.
She suddenly realized that her head was cradled in Ruby Sue’s lap and that Ruby Sue was droning on and on.
“…it was never nothing personal, girl, you have to understand that. That manager of yours… well… he played with the wrong people. The day you came here, I guess that would be today or was it yesterday? Fuck it. They found him, dragged him out of hiding and, well, you get the idea. They whacked him out, you know? Joe was hooked up with… well, I guess it doesn’t matter… but he got the contract on you and that brought us here. It was never anything personal. You believe that, don’t you?”
Lisa didn’t really care.
In the back of her mind, sure, it explained things, but it seemed so trivial now. What did any of it matter?
She blinked her eyes and saw Johnny.
Saw the way he was looking at her.
His eyes radiated a certain fuzzy warmth and she was pretty certain that in these few short hours he’d fallen in love with her. She smiled at him and it felt good to do so. She imagined she looked a real fright, like an extra from an Italian zombie movie.
But he didn’t seem to care.
“We made it?” she said.
He nodded. “Yeah, finally.”
Ruby Sue stroked her face. There were tears in her eyes. “Joe didn’t… he didn’t make it here. Not this time.”
“Lou?” she said.
Johnny shook his head, looked away.
So it was only the three of them now. She guessed it really didn’t matter. She could hear gunfire and explosions and figured the army, or whoever those people were, were closing in, cleansing the town of its infected elements. Which, she knew, would include them eventually.
“I think the shit’s about to get deep,” Johnny said.
And he was right.
“I don’t mind dying,” Lisa said to him, “as long as I’m with you.”
37
Johnny smiled at her in the glow of the burning town, beneath the baleful eye of the full moon which was slipping away now into the western sky. He wanted to tell her many things, but there was no time. War had broken out below and there was gunfire and explosions and screaming and dying. A main force group had probably made it up to the third floor and encountered the mob that had gotten Lou.
Hell was breaking loose now.
The rooftop was pretty much the same as Johnny remembered from when he was a teenager. There were two maintenance sheds up there as well as some sort of radio shack with an antenna climbing into the hazy sky. Probably for the police and fire radios.
The three survivors were hidden around the side of one of the sheds, backs up against the projecting outer ledge of the southern exposure. They were on the only flat expanse of roof. The rest was all sheer and pitched, jutting domes and towers and you name it. Behind them, if you were to look up above the four-foot ledge, you could see the town burning.
Johnny had looked for some time and then forced himself to look away. The destruction of his hometown wasn’t as pleasant a thing as he’d once envisioned.
They were waiting for the killers.
Crouched in a tight little formation, they were waiting to die.
Ruby Sue said, “Maybe we should just get the fuck out of—”
“Quiet,” Johnny whispered.
They were coming.
The only true advantage the three of them had was that their assailants did not know precisely where they were. Maybe they had a general idea there would be something up here, but not who or what. The door on the far side swung open and out came a soldier, moving low and defensively, M-16 cradled in his arms. His vision was obscured by his hood, so he had to stop and scan his surroundings from time to time.
“He’s mine,” Ruby Sue said, picking up her rifle.
The soldier was followed by three others, part of a recon team.
They would check the roof and if there was trouble, they’d call in a main force body. They fanned out, paying particular attention to the radio shack. The first guy crept over near the maintenance sheds.
Ruby Sue got a bead on him with her M-16, aiming the barrel in the general direction of his upper body. It was unlikely she’d miss—the bastard was close enough to spit at now.
In his hood, he hadn’t seen her yet.
Then he did.
As he made eye contact (or what passed for it under the hood), Ruby Sue pulled the trigger. He took two three-shot bursts directly in the chest. His rifle went one way and he went the other, his arms flaying, his suit painted red. He hit the ground kicking and wailing and gurgling, trying in vain to strip his hood off. In a moment or two, he was still. Only the stink of cordite in the air remained.
The other three charged out, shooting in every conceivable direction.
Using the .30-06, Johnny dropped both of them with head-shots, their visors exploding with blood and meat.
The last man carried a flamethrower and he squirted a barrage of fire in their general direction. It struck one of the sheds and lit it up. As the guy tried to make it back through the doorway, Johnny shot him in the tanks and there was eruption of fire as burning fuel engulfed the man and everything around him. Like a villager caught in a napalm burst, the guy danced around wildly before collapsing in a blackened, sizzling heap.